Chinese Tea Garden

Wow. I was so disappointed and embarrassed. There were many empty tables that hadn’t been cleared off, no one was greeting guests, and my mother and I were there for 15 minutes before being asked if we wanted menus. We waited another 10 minutes. The girl disappeared into the back of the restaurant, no one was busing tables, and still no menus. The place was, in general, filthy and unwelcoming on this day. We left. This was Saturday the 19^th of Dec.
I will never darken the doorstep of this place again. It is a shame.

Place isn’t the cleanest ever. But the food is really good. The cho cho are the best I’ve ever eaten. The sweet and sour pork was really good, as was my finances generals chicken. The shrimp fried rice was pretty good. The hot and sour soup needed some soy was was pretty good after, and was nice and spicy. The portions are HUGE!

I love Chinese tea garden. Every time I come home to New Orleans I get enough chicken fried rice to bring back with me to DC. I don’t know what they do, but the food here is delicious, high quality, fairly priced, and most importantly, consistent. I’ve eaten here since I was a kid, and everything is the same in the best way possible.

This meal was a combination of compromises. My colleague wanted Chinese food. Why I would eat Chinese in Louisiana when I live in CA I don’t know?! I wanted to eat Indian food. He was probably thinking the same… why would I eat Indian in LA when I live in Philly?! This place was the least Americanized Chinese food I could see from Unilocal photos.
My first choice was the soft shell crab but it wasn’t available. My second choice was the seafood combo. The scallop was not too fresh but the shrimp and lobster tail were fine. Stir fried with broccoli means it needs some sauce to bring together quite bland seafood ingredients, but the chef wasn’t about to deliver that. I resorted to stealing the sauce from my colleague’s dish and requesting some chili sauce too. Overall average dish. May be it was because I saw a non-​Chinese guy in the kitchen?
My colleague’s vegetarian so he got veg fried rice and extra plate of vegetables V1 on the menu. That was ok. Not bad, not wow.
The local fire fighters come and eat here If that’s Any indication of this place. The plates are huge… one order is enough for 2 diners.

Perfect Chinese food. We eat here at least once a week. The food is great for the price. It’s a great Gentilly staple.

My coworker and I went to China Tea Garden for lunch. Walking in the door, there was a strange smell to the establishment that I couldnt quite place. But it seemed filled with people so I chalked it up to nothing. My coworker and I sat down and ordered egg drop soup and won ton soup, both lunch portions along with our entrees. The establishment has that hole-​in-​the-​wall feel, but Ive had some decent food at places like that. When our soups arrived my Wonton soup was 90% cabbage, 5% soup, 4% wonton and pork, and 1% ROACH. That’s right, there was a roach in my soup about a half-​inch long. See picture below. That said, the staff did look like they were working hard, but overall the place does not look clean and the insect in my food (which I ate half of before I saw the roach floating beneath the copious amounds of cabbage I ate) is tell tale of this fact. When we notified our waitress of the insect she seemed absolutely unconcerned and merely went along bussing the table behind us. My coworker and I prompty left.

I really like the food here! The orange chicken is the best I’ve ever had. If I could change anything it would be the smell of the place. It’s weird. Can’t be that bad though as I continue to go back. I’d recommend it.

I’ve eaten here twice, since moving to the neighborhood 12wks ago and I love it! A great neighborhood place, which has been around for a couple of decades, so the staff knows everybody! The foods good, price is good, staff is friendly!!! I recommend, highly…

Probably the best Chinese food in NOLA. Definitely beats out Five Happiness. I love the convenience of it and the Orange chicken isn’t too breaded. YUM!

Ordered the crab ragoon and general tongs chicken. Very clean, and the people are friendly. The food here is always great. It’s a bit pricy, but the portions are worth it. The shrimp fried rice reminds me of the only chinese food resturant we had back home. I will definitely be returning.

One of the best places in Gentilly. Fast service, reasonable prices, and delicious mandarin chicken.

This is the best chinese place I’ve found in the New Orleans Metro area.
Their egg drop soup is great! The wontons it is served with are always crispy and fresh. On a cold rainy day it is my favorite comfort food.
The quality of the beef is very good and their shrimp taste fresh. Their sauces are flavorful and they do not skimp. I’m not normally a big fried rice person but here it is a must.
The crab rangoons are yummy and fresh and are balanced in flavors. I could probably live on crab rangoons and white rice.
My husband’s fried pork chops were amazing. If you are thinking of trying them, do it!
Everything we’ve had here has been great. We drive from Jefferson without hesitation.

I went here really craving some good Chinese food. I ordered the General Tong’s Chicken it was decent but had some sorta sour/​burnt flavor that was not pleasing, possibly old oil or something. The shrimp fried rice was pretty good, may have been the saving grace from a 1 star review. I will try this place again and order something else soon!

The food was ok. The service was good. But omg I was shocked when they charged $ 2.50 per head for HOT TEA!!! Are you kidding me??? I wouldn’t come back because of this reason. It’s ridiculous and way over charged for HOT WATER AND 1 BAG OF TEA!!! RIDICULOUS!!!

I’ve been eating at this place for a while now and lately they have disappointing me. I ordered my usual dish, which is the combination rice with no shrimp and extra chicken. I preceded to eat my rice and it had a lot of foreign stuff in it. So i threw it all away. I hope that no one else has this experience. 2 times it was horrible. You just lost a good customer.

Food is good can’t complain about that. Ate there once, had a nice experience. Another time, I had take out, got home, and OMG there was hair in my food! I knew it wasn’t my hair b/​c the hair was cooked into the food! Neatless to say, I won’t be eating there again. Yuck!

Great specials, huge portions, tasty food!

We were a little non-​plussed by only 1 egg roll on the appetizer platter and that the crab rangoons were just deep fried wonton wrappers. No filling, just a dorito shaped triangle of fried flour. We also both ordered the Yaka mein. The pork was good but the broth was just a basic chicken with no traces of hangover suspending flavors or spices. I could have used some ketchup and worcestershire to help this along. Service was great and the restaurant was clean and inviting. The menu looked good and i’ll try some other things in the future.

Pretty good for an average looking Chinese restaurant. Convenient for college kids closeby. The Chinese food is actually pretty good and not pricey, the service is a bit better than before so that’s another plus. Very nice owners too. Orange beef was good last time I had it (which was 2 years ago LOL). Today we had the potstickers, lunch combos: General Tong’s chicken and Tea Garden Lomein special. The lomein was different than what I expected. The lomein was thin, thin, stringy egg noodles and I expected it to be the thicker noodles but in the end it was good anyway. It’s a combo of chicken, pork, shrimp, cabbage, carrots, and celery. Pretty good I’d have to say bc I was pretty disappointed when it came out looking that way but it tasted good changed my mood. Haha! My friend had the General tong’s chicken, not sure how it tasted but I assumed it was good as well. Both came with fried rice, which was also good. Not bland like typical, average Chinese restaurants that don’t seem to wanna put effort into it just bc it comes with the combo. So this place, all in all, is good for quick lunch and if you’re craving some good olé Chinese food.

SALT & PEPPER PORK CHOP KID
I’m very attuned to spotting Chinese restaurants. You see as a youth I grew up in one and essentially ate Chinese food everyday. My dad would cook anything I fancied… never anything exotic. Just a hamburger steak with chopped onions, or how about soft scrambled eggs with oyster sauce and a hint of sesame oil along with a few slices of bbq pork over hot steamy rice, maybe even tomato beef slightly sweet and tangy or grilled slightly fatty pork chop seasoned with just salt and pepper with rice. I never tired of my daddy’s cooking.
Spotted this restaurant on the first visit to my new office and Unilocal’ed the restaurant. The only Asian to review happens to be the son of the owner who wrote a glowing report and up front said he had worked on weekends and learned the trade. The other reviewers all said three things in common: cheap, huge servings and great tasting. Wow, this is worth a visit for lunch.
Next day along with two other colleagues we’re all sitting in this no frills Chinese restaurant which reminded me of my parent’s restaurant. I stunned my work buddies and server when I ordered in Cantonese. My colleagues couldn’t believe the quality and quantity of their lunch.
Remember the attributes in common? My salt and pepper pork chops was crisp, succulent, flavor perfected and plentiful enough for another lunch. Fried rice included pieces of shrimp too. With this said the price of the food almost became a non factor.
Not uncommon in Naw’lins, Chinese restaurants are mostly take out but CTG is a sit down restaurant. I just finished the other half of yesterday’s lunch. Just as good microwaved. LOL
WHERE IS CHINATOWN ?
It was the cotton and sugar cane fields along with the abolition of African slavery that fused the placement of ultra cheap and efficient ethnic Chinese laborers onto Louisiana soil during the early mid 1800’s. First hundred or so initially came from Cuba. (For countless years Havana’s Chinatown was the largest on the Western Hemisphere until Fidel Castro came into power.) Spanish War put a halt to the very profitable human trafficking from Cuba. Next wave of 1500 ethnic Chinese came via Calfornia. By the hundreds this group made an effort to learn English from a Boston Presbyterian missionary lead by Lena Saunders beginning in 1881. Adaptation to Western attire armed with the abilty to read and write English may have contributed towards the dissemination of ethnic Chinese beyond the few streets of then Naw’lin’s Chinatown.
This Chinatown was just a short city block of merchants and associations side by side just across the street from the then Criminal Court House. The Eastern European Jews, Italians and colored made up the rest of the Court House neighborhood. The few Chinese restaurants served both cheap Chinese and soul foods from the same menu. Essentially Chinese females were nonexistent. The exclusively male community was often referred to as «John Chinatown,» and «coolies» or «chinks.» Without further research, I am assuming the name «John» had something to do with men paying for the physical comforts of whores. Is it by coincidence that the Red Light Districts are neighborly proximate to so many of America’s Chinatowns?
The US-​China Burlingame Treaty of 1868, War of Cuba 1868, Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Permanent Extension of the Chinese Exclusion of 1892, World War II, Magnuson Act of 1943 did not favor ethnic Chinese immigration to America for nearly a hundred years. It was certainly no «Golden Mountain» for any of them.
Supposedly a delapidated brick wall still stands as a vague reminder of where Naw’lin’s Chinatown once stood. The Criminal Court House, missionary and Presbyterian church have been demolished long ago. Tulane Medical Center now sits on top of it all.